A blog for passing time, and passing messages about media, about media ecology which is the study of media environments, about language and symbols, about technology, about communication, about consciousness, about culture, about life and the universe, about everything and nothing, about time...

Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Meet Me in Atlantic City

So, if you have nothing better to do this weekend, and you're in the neighborhood, you can come meet me down in Atlantic City (that's in South Jersey in case you didn't know). I'll be at a different kind of conference from my usual academic fare. This one's called SOCON Social Media Internet User Advocates, and it's taking place at the Trump Taj Mahal Casino Hotel (which may be your last chance to see it, since it'll be closing its doors not too long after, one of many hotels and casinos in the former boardwalk empire to fold due to the economy and increased competition from legalized gambling elsewhere in the region, and online).Anyway, you can read all about it on the SOCON site. Just click on the old linkaroo and you'll see me listed as the keynote speaker, along with a nice graphic of some of my book covers. The other headliners are comedienne Michelle Tomko and personal trainer and fitness coach PJ Shirdan. That should make for some interesting juxtapositions...So, anyway, the title I came up for my talk is, "So You Want to Change the World? A Hitchhiker's Guide to Subversive Thinking?" (what do you think?). And the blurb to go with it goes like this:

Whether you're an activist, or an entrepreneur, an amateur or a professional, an executive or a volunteer, chances are there are things about the world, or things about your world, that you want to change. But change doesn't always come easy, and when it does, it often doesn't work out quite the way we wanted it to. And while there are no guarantees in life, developing successful strategies for change begins with subversive thinking, with adopting new ways of talking about the world, of perceiving and understanding the environments we live and operate within. This talk will introduce some of the most important and useful methods for subversive thinking, based on the fields of general semantics and media ecology.

As I said, it's a bit different from my usual fare, but then again, it isn't. So anyway, while I'm not native to New Jersey, and consequently do not take part in the Springsteen worship that everyone else in this state seems to go in for, I think this certainly calls for a bit of Bruce (don't you think?)...And yeah, this song is what the title of this blog post alludes to. It's an obvious reference (you agree, right?). Well, anyway, I'm not really sure about how it will all turn out, it's Atlantic City so it's got to be a gamble, after all. But it should be interesting... and good fun!